A Different Kind of Ace
by Rowena Zahnrei
Summary: Rimmer left Starbug to become someone he liked, but he always hated Ace. Now he feels he's trapped playing a part, a failure in a shiny costume. To become a hero in his own right, Rimmer must face up to his old crew, his family, and his self-loathing...
1. Prologue: Multiverse 101

Disclaimer: I do not own _Red Dwarf_. Please don't sue me or steal my story. Thanks!

NOTE: Another of my myriad plotted-out-but-only-half-written story idea files I figured deserves a chance to grow. So, here it is, STORY #62. Please let me know what you think!

A DIFFERENT KIND OF ACE

By Rowena Zahnrei

**Multiverse 101: A Prologue**

_Ace Rimmer flicked back a stray lock of his perfect hair and turned his cool gaze to the Sultan. _

_"I'm afraid the Plutonian Cybernauts aren't going to back down, your Eminence," he said, his smooth voice managing to convey warning and encouragement at the same time. "At least four thousand have gathered outside that wall, and you can bet they'll have at least twice as many more hanging over us in orbit. They want the Princess Angela, and they'll reduce this moon to rubble if they don't get her, pronto."_

_"But what can we do?" The little man twisted the hem of his golden robes between his pudgy fingers. "My wife was right—I never should have tried for this job. 'Play the numbers, win four years of luxury as Sultan of Io.' What was I thinking?"_

_"Now's not the time for second guesses, old chum. You've got to keep those spirits up. For your daughter's sake, and for the sake of your people."_

_"But how can I?" the Sultan cried. "There are thousands of those creatures out there, Ace, thousands! And there's only one of you."_

_Ace regarded the quaking little man. "That's as may be," the hero said, "But if there's one thing I've learned over the years, it's that you don't need numbers to win the day. In fact, in this case, the sheer size of that Cybernautic army out there is its own Achilles heel."_

_"What do you mean?" the Sultan asked, a tentative, hopeful light beginning to brighten his eyes. "Are you saying you've cooked up one of those lovely planney things of yours?"_

_"Trust me, Sultan," Ace said, and slipped on his shades. "I'll have this problem sorted before you can say, 'Smoke me a ki—'"_

"—mer! Arnold Rimmer, are you listening to me?"

Arnold Rimmer, aged thirteen and a quarter, stumbled back to reality through a haze of disorientation. He'd been so deep into his daydream, he felt as if he'd actually been standing in his imaginary Sultan's palace, ready to save the beautiful Princess Angela from a fate worse than reality TV. Now, he looked around to find himself back in boarding school surrounded by his smirking peers and fixed in the sights of his mathematics teacher's double-barreled glare.

"He's not, Mr. Nesbit," Lawrence "Stinky" Bateman piped up from the desk across from him. "He's been doodling in his notepad again."

It was true. The lined paper that should have been filled with neat lines of algebra notes instead sported a series of shaded pencil drawings depicting his imaginary hero Ace Rimmer's sleek, dimension-jumping ship, the _Wildfire_, speeding across the stars to meet the deadly Cybernaut space fleet. He looked up at his teacher with a wince. "Uh…"

"Right," the teacher said, his thin face taut. "I warned you. I told you the next time I caught you slacking off in class I'd send you to the Headmaster."

Arnold blinked. "Sir? But I—"

"And don't even start with the excuses." Mr. Nesbit pursed his lips, his posture radiating disappointment. Arnold lowered his eyes to his desk.

"I have given you every chance, Mr. Rimmer," the teacher said. "When your mother called to warn me about you at the beginning of the year—during my supper hour, I might add—I figured she was drunk, or exaggerating. I promised myself to give you the benefit of the doubt and judge you by your own merit. But what am I to judge? You don't do your work, you don't pay attention, you constantly drift off into these daydreams of yours. And come evaluations, you invariably have a nervous fit and get yourself sent to the nurse. How do you expect to graduate if all you ever do is slack off and make excuses?"

Arnold folded his hands and squeezed his fingers together until they hurt. "I don't mean to, sir," he said. "I try to pay attention, honest I do. It's just…" He trailed off, his face flushed with embarrassment, completely unable to admit the truth: that he found algebra incomprehensible and seeing the other boys copy down and compute the problems that the teacher set left him so bitterly angry over his own boneheaded stupidity that the only safe escape for his ego and pride was in the depths of his imagination. In fact, it had gotten to the point where, most days, Arnold slipped into a daydream the moment he sank into his chair. He told himself that he needed those daydreams, relied on them. They were the only thing in his pathetic, lonely life that gave him any sense of satisfaction or achievement.

"Good grief, Rimmer!" his teacher exclaimed.

Arnold jumped, startled out of his thoughts. "Sir!" The class snickered.

"You're doing it again! By Jupiter's spot, boy, can't you keep your mind in this reality for more than two minutes at a stretch?"

Arnold looked around uncomfortably, unsure what to say. Mr. Nesbit closed his eyes and rubbed the place where his glasses sat on his nose.

"Right. Out. Get out, Rimmer, out of my sight," he said with a tired sigh. "You've wasted enough of this class's time. And when you come back, please, try to have your homework done, for once. I'll ring the Headmaster and tell him you're on your way."

Arnold hung his curly-haired head and stood, slinging his book bag over his shoulder. The aisle through the desks became a walk of shame, lined on all sides by cruel, jeering smiles. Closing the classroom door behind him, he stared out into the empty, green corridor and just stood there, nostrils flaring as his anger and humiliation blended into a quiet, tentative defiance.

"What do I care," he said, his high, adolescent voice echoing against the cold, polished tiles. "It's not my fault I don't learn anything if my teachers keep sending me out of the room. Besides, what's a Space Corps Test Pilot need algebra for anyway? I want to fly the ships, not build them!"

Casting a glare over his shoulder at the classroom door, Arnold strode toward the lift that would take him to where the Headmaster waited at the top floor of the boarding school's dome.

Io House was reputed to be the best boys' school in the Outer System. It was the training ground of the crème de la crème of the colony worlds, an elitist institution that demanded the highest performance of all its students. Many boys cracked under the pressure and transferred out to government-funded schools before their third year. A school like that, that prided itself on its competitive spirit and ruthless standards of achievement, had no resources to waste on remedial education or psychological counseling. It was sink or swim, and Arnold felt like he had been holding his breath for years.

"They'll see," he muttered as the lift doors closed. "They'll all see. When I'm an officer, those pompous goits will tear each other to pieces just for the chance to shake my hand. They'll line up for miles to cheer Commander Ace Rimmer, Space Adventurer!"

_To Be Continued..._

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	2. Chapter One

**Chapter One: **_Some 3 Million Eight Hundred Years Later (Relative Time), in a very distant reality…_

"Ace, there's thousands of those monsters out there. Thousands! And my Home Guard has already been through the wringer. We're a peaceful people, normally. We only have minimum defenses. What are we to do?"

"Fear not, Sultan," Ace replied over the comm. system, staring through his cockpit window at the dense cloud of saucers hovering over the blue-green planetoid. "If there's one thing I've learned over the years, it's that you don't need numbers to win the day. In fact, in this case, the sheer size of that Simulant fleet out there is its own Achilles heel."

The Sultan's quaking voice filled with hope. "You mean, you have a plan?"

Ace flashed the Sultan's viewer image a confident smile. "Worry ye not, Sultan" he said. "I'll have your daughter home safe and sound before you know it, with plenty of time left for cake and presents. Computer," he called out as he cut communications with the palace.

"Yes, Ace?" the _Wildfire_ computer responded in her sultry voice.

"I'm transporting over to the lead ship. I'll need you to set a trap while I rescue Princess Angela."

"What would you like me to do?"

"You know those Tranq'mutanian fire-bombs we've got stashed in the back, left over from that party in Dimension 11349082?"

The computer cottoned on immediately. "The asteroid field!"

"Pepper the field with a few of those babies, but make sure you stay within transport range. I'll let you in on Phase Two of the plan when I get back with Princess Angela."

"Ace—" the computer started, then seemed to think better of what she was going to say. "Take care," she finished softly.

"I always do, old girl," he said affectionately. "Smoke me a kipper. You know the rest."

With those parting words, the hero activated the teleport, his photons reforming in a sweaty, humid corridor at least thirty degrees too hot for human comfort.

"Thank goodness I'm a hologram," Ace muttered to himself, and glanced down at his wrist scanner/communicator/compass watch to get a lay of the land. Clusters of Simulants glowed a sickly blue in several of the branching rooms, but they didn't concern him. Only the little red dot up ahead, trapped in what seemed to be the main airlock.

With all the speed and stealth of a highly evolved cat, Ace dashed to the airlock with barely a sound and slapped his keypad decoder over the coded doorlock. Within seconds, the decoder had run through all possible permutations and hit upon the correct numbers. Ace pulled it away and stuffed it back into his pocket as the airlock doors rolled open with a heavy, metallic sigh.

Princess Angela sat inside, strapped to a metal chair, her pale face red and puffy from sobbing into her gag. Two Simulant guards towered over her, mocking her tears and threatening her with their guns. They turned when they heard the doors unlock, and were already firing when they opened.

Ace ducked and rolled under the barrage, unholstering his guns and firing a charged tag at each guard in a single, fluid move. As the Simulants stood jittering in a fizzing fury of electrical feedback, Ace used the knife he kept strapped to his boot to cut the princess free. Hoisting the young girl into his arms, he raced a sudden flood of Simulant soldiers, who'd no doubt been alerted by the noise, back up the corridor, locked onto his ship's position, and activated his transporter just in time to see a hail of Simulant bullets pass harmlessly through their fading forms.

The pair reappeared in the cramped, one-man cockpit of the _Wildfire_, the disoriented princess curled up in his lap.

"There, now, Princess," he said, supporting her with his arm as she sobbed into his shoulder. "Not the best way to spend your thirteenth birthday, perhaps, but no need to fret. You're with me now, and I'm going to take you home. It'll be as if your birthday celebrations were never interrupted."

The girl looked up at him through bleary blue eyes, and Ace was slapped with a disorienting jolt of déjà vu. This girl, the Princess Angela, she looked exactly like a girl he'd known at school. Jumping from dimension to dimension, Ace had become rather used to seeing familiar faces in strange settings, but this was something different.

Angela Parker had been a student at the girls' school counterpart of his own Io House. A few times a year, the two schools would embark on joint field trips to Earth or Mars or Titan, and once…one shining, magical trip…Angela had let him, Arnold "Bonehead" Rimmer, sit next to her on the green school shuttle. Both ways, to Earth then back to Io. They hadn't talked much, but she'd smiled at him whenever he'd dared to glance her way. They'd been real smiles, too. Genuine, without a hint of the malice or disgust he was used to seeing in his peers.

There had only been that one trip, he hadn't seen her again after that. Still, Angela Parker's golden smiles had warmed his daydreams for the remainder of his childhood, where he'd often cast her as the damsel in distress to be rescued by his heroic creation, Ace Rimmer.

Now, surreal though it was to contemplate, it seemed that childhood daydream had actually come true. After all, it was basic Multiverse 101 that every possibility, every choice, every dream was played out somewhere. Hard as it had been for him to accept at first, the Ace Rimmer legend he'd dreamed up as a boy was real. He was living it. And now, a real, living incarnation of the Princess Angela was cradled in his arms. Only, she was still a child, while he had grown up a long, long time ago. Even if she had been the same Angela he'd known, he could never expect her to recognize him as the shy boy from the shuttle trip to Earth.

"We're really going home?" the girl asked, drying her eyes on the sleeve of her torn and filthy party dress. "But…but what about…" she stared out the viewscreen at the fleet of Simulant saucers.

"Ah, yes. Phase Two," Ace said, shaking off the bittersweet memories of a lonely boy, long gone, and turning his concentration to the task at hand. "Computer!"

"Here, Ace. I scattered the fire-bombs as you asked."

"Excellent." Ace smiled. "Now comes the fun part."

The princess shifted on his lap so she could see the controls. "Are you going to blow up the Simulants?" she asked.

"That's up to them," Ace replied. "The trick is to get them angry enough to chase us blindly. Then, we manipulate the fire-bombs."

"How are you going to do that?" the princess asked.

Ace smiled at her. "Strategy, my dear princess. Always know your enemy. Computer, open a channel to the lead ship."

"Channel open, Ace," the computer replied.

"This is Ace Rimmer calling the Simulant leader," the hero said in his smooth, confident tone. "I have rescued the Princess Angela, and I warn you now, unless you leave this system, never to return, I shall personally see each and every one of you destroyed."

A crackle of static burst from the viewer, fading to the image of a gray-faced Simulant warrior scowling up from the screen. His expression was made all the fiercer by his pointed brown teeth and the red optic lens glaring out from the ragged hole where his left eye should have been.

"Ace Rimmer," he ground out with a voice like rusty gears. "I'd know that arrogance anywhere."

"It's not arrogance if I can pull off what I promise. And I promise, if you go near that planetoid again, I'll—"

"He'll blow you out of space, you metal-hearted monsters!" the princess shouted. "He's got a plan that will—mmMMmm!"

"Shh, that's enough, Princess," Ace hissed, his hand clamped over her mouth. "While I appreciate your enthusiasm, we don't want to give away the whole strategy, now do we?"

Princess Angela nodded and stopped struggling, but he needn't have worried. The moment the Simulant leader caught a glimpse of the princess, he shouted, "He has our prisoner! After him! All of you, after him now!"

"Heh, will you look at that. Good job, Princess. The entire Simulant fleet is on the move. Computer," he said. "To the asteroid field! Let's give those cyborg bastards a chase they won't soon forget."

"Yes!" the princess cheered, and wrapped her arms around his neck. The Rimmer in him stiffened in surprise, but Ace just chucked warmly and said, "I'm going to need both arms now if this is going to work. I know it's tight quarters, but if you could just scoot to the left a bit…"

"Yeah, of course," the girl said, and slid her small frame off his lap to crouch in the narrow space just behind his chair. "Ace, when you're ready, could I push the button?"

"Princess?"

"To blow up the Simulants! They wrecked my birthday party, destroyed my pool, wiped out my Dad's army, and nearly tossed me out an airlock! If they're going to die, I want them to know I pushed the button!"

"Princess, there isn't any button," Ace said. "The fire-bombs are activated by proximity—as soon as the Simulant ships get close enough, they'll go off all on their own. What I'm doing is programming the shape of the explosions."

"Shape?"

"Fire-bombs are essentially high-powered fireworks," Ace explained. "When they go off, they can take any shape you like."

"What shape are you programming, then?" she asked eagerly. "Space stingrays? Fire-breathing toads?"

As the _Wildfire_'s auto pilot cleared the far side of the asteroid field, Ace typed in the last of his instructions and hit 'enter'. Sitting back in his chair, he said, "Now, we watch the show."

The Simulant fleet had spread out as it entered the field, clearly aiming to surround the _Wildfire_. As the rear guard passed the first few rocks, the front guard encountered a startling surprise. A flaming orange battleship, twice the size of a Simulant saucer, flared up before them. Another ship appeared toward the middle, then another, then another, hemming the Simulants into a dangerously tight cluster. As the insubstantial battleships began to fizz and sputter deadly sparks and cinders, the Simulants tried to mount an attack, only to see their torpedoes and lasers pass through the ships and hit the Simulant saucers on the other side. Frustrated, several tried to ram the ships, and ended up as craters on the craggy face of an asteroid. Within minutes, the pointless assault had reduced most of the fleet to flaming debris. Then, as a glorious finale, the fiery battleships zipped toward the center of the remaining fleet, leaving glimmering trails behind them as they collided in a spectacular light show of reds and greens, oranges and yellows and blues and purples. The Simulants scattered, only to meet up with giant rocks and spinning chunks of wrecked saucers. For a moment, just before the lead ship was smashed into asteroid pizza, the viewer in Ace's cockpit sputtered with static. Then, space was silent once more.

"Well, Princess?" Ace asked as he set them on a course back to her homeworld. "What did you think?"

"Wow," she breathed, her eyes wide and her jaw slack. "And you didn't have to fire a shot! You just basically set up the fireworks and let the Simulants destroy themselves!"

"The _Wildfire_ isn't a war ship, Princess," Ace said. "But Simulants only think in terms of war, of offense and defense. If they feel their back's up against a wall, they have to fight. Under normal circumstances, those fireworks would barely have registered against the Simulants' defensive shields. But throw in an asteroid field and an apparent advance from an unidentified alien battle fleet, and poof! Instant recipe for a Simulant barbeque."

"You are so clever," the princess sighed, climbing back onto his lap. "When I grow up, I want to be just like you!"

Rimmer blinked. "What, really?" He cleared his throat, realizing she meant Ace. "Yes, well, first we need to get you back to your dad. Can't have much of a birthday party without the birthday girl, now can you?"

"Will you come to my party, Ace?" she asked. "Please? I want all my friends to meet you, and then we can tell them about the Simulants and the fireworks and—"

"Princess Angela," Ace said kindly, "I thank you for your invitation. But, you see, now you're safe and the Simulants are gone, my work here is done. There are a billion other realities out there. A billion other people who need my help. And I have to go to them. Do you understand, Princess?"

The princess nodded and rested her head against his shoulder. "But don't you ever get a break?" she asked.

"Can't afford it," he said. "When you have a reputation like mine, there's always someone out there to challenge it. Every time you think you can relax, trouble always has a way of finding you. That's why I can't stay in any one place too long. Instead of being a protector, I'd end up drawing danger to the people I care about. Ah—here we are: the royal palace. I'll just take her down on that cricket pitch, and then we'll have to say good bye."

"It isn't fair, Ace," the princess said as he initiated a manual landing sequence. "Someone as good as you should be happy. But you're not, are you." She sighed and snuggled even closer into his arms. "I think you must be the loneliest man in the galaxy."

"Princess…"

"I could come with you," she said, sitting up to look him in the eye. "I could be your daughter, and we could roam the multiverse together, and then you wouldn't have to be lonely, and I—"

"Princess, your father is outside," Ace said gently, pushing the button to raise the roof of the cockpit. "He's waiting for you."

The girl's expression flickered, caught between her fantasy and encroaching reality. For a moment, Ace felt like a boy again, watching Angela Parker join her parents at the far side of the shuttle lot at the end of the trip. Even then, he'd known he'd never see her smile again.

Leaning forward, he placed a soft kiss on the princess's forehead, then helped her down from the cockpit and into her father's waiting arms.

"Oh, Angela, my darling girl!" the Sultan sobbed as he hugged her close. "Oh, thank the heavens you're safe! Ace— Ace Rimmer, how can I ever repay you. You've saved our world, and restored my kingdom's greatest treasure."

"Happy to do it, your Eminence," Ace replied from the cockpit. "You have quite a girl, there. Perceptive, quick witted…" He smiled. "I wish you all the best."

The Sultan's eyes widened. "You're not leaving, Ace? Not so soon? I've organized a parade and a banquet—"

"Sounds like a marvelous way to celebrate your daughter's birthday. Set off a few fireworks for me, yeah?"

Princess Angela smiled at that, as he'd hoped she would. With that image locked in his memory, Ace lowered the cockpit's roof and snapped the Sultan and his daughter a sharp salute, lifting off to their shouts of "Good-bye, Ace! Thank you!"

As the _Wildfire_ cleared the planetoid's atmosphere, Princess Angela sighed, and her smile turned bittersweet. "What a guy."

_To Be Continued..._

Opinions? Criticisms? Please let me know what you think! :)_  
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	3. Chapter Two

**Chapter Two**

Back in the black wastes of space, Arnold Rimmer pulled off his wig and rubbed the smooth center of his forehead, where the metallic H that had marked his hologrammatic status had once protruded.

"Ace?" the computer prodded. "Ace, are you all right?"

"Don't call me that, Computer," Rimmer said through a scowl. "Not when we're alone."

"Oh, Arnold, not another sulk," said the computer. "Why are you being like this? You've been Ace for five years now—"

"Two," he corrected. "The first three were training. Training that you said shouldn't have taken more than a few months, if you remember."

"—and you've done a darn fine job carrying on the flame," the computer continued in a firm voice. "I don't understand this thing inside you that can never accept success, especially after such a clever victory."

Rimmer didn't acknowledge her words. He just turned his eyes to the window, staring out at nothing in particular. "That girl was right, you know. The Princess Angela," he said. "I'm not happy. I suppose I should be…successful mission and all that… But, to tell the truth, I'm sick of it. Sick of the act, sick of the costume, sick of the stupid butch voice." He scowled. "Just because the first Ace smoked two packs of those little girly cigars a day and dressed up in a shiny flight suit that made him look like a holiday traveler trapped in Heathrow Airport after a snowstorm, why should _I_ have to suffer for it?" (1).

"Arnie—"

"No, I mean it!" Rimmer said. "If it really is my destiny to do this hero lark day after day, year after year, why can't I ever do it as myself? Why does the credit for all _my_ hard work always have to go to boost the reputation of that dead git? Why?"

"Arnie, I've told you time and again," the computer said patiently. "You do get the credit. His reputation, his legend, is yours too. _You_ _are_ Ace Rimmer. You've earned the name a hundred times over, and then some."

"That's just it, though," Rimmer protested. "I may be doing his job, even doing it well, but that doesn't _make _me Ace. I hated Ace. Even now, I can't stand the thought of his smug face, that conceited, self-satisfied, overachieving bastard. Did I tell you about the first time we met? He just burst on the scene with his broken arm and perfect hair and started making assumptions. I was still in my soft-light form then, but he kept prattling on, making demands as if that didn't even matter. I ask you, how could I be expected to bring that simpering mechanoid Kryten back online when I couldn't even touch the doorframe without my hand passing through it? And all those engine performance questions he kept hurling at me—for all he knew I'd been the ship's cook! Dancing around _Starbug's_ hold with Lister as if he were the host of a kids' TV show..." Rimmer shook his head in disgust. "Everyone seems to forget: if Saint Ace hadn't lost control after his first dimension jump and crashed into our ship, we never would have needed his smegging help in the first place."

"Look, you said it yourself, Arnold," the computer said. "That Ace is dead. He's gone, and so is the Ace that came before you."

"You mean James-smegging-Bond," Rimmer muttered. "The man who shagged his way across eighty-six dimensions before catching a Nazi bullet with his lightbee."

"I mean, there's no point complaining about them. The job is yours now and, despite a few rocky patches to begin with, you've done spectacularly so far. In fact, you're one of only three Ace Rimmers who ever bothered to learn how to pilot this ship manually, without any backup from me. That makes you a genuine flying ace, at least in my book. "

"It's just not good enough, Computer," Rimmer insisted, making her wonder if he'd even heard her words. "Ace may be physically dead, but his legend lives on, bigger than us all. And no matter how many times you go on about 'taking up the flame' and 'the great relay race,' the bare, basic truth of the matter is that I'm not Ace. I'm an actor playing Ace. When my predecessor died, he handed me the costume and the role and you taught me the lines and the moves. But I didn't earn that name, or his rank of commander. I never made it to Space Corps Special Services. I'm just a private, a lowly Second Technician, all scrunched up and hiding behind a much grander character. And now, no matter what I do, no matter how heroic or selfless or stupid or whatever… It's not me that gets the credit, it's the legend. And if I screw up, the legend makes up for it."

He shook his head, his features pinched and his gaze light years away. "My whole life I've had to live in the shadow of someone else: my brothers, my mother—even myself! Back on _Red Dwarf_, when Holly activated my hologram to keep Lister sane, I knew I wasn't the same man I'd been. Arnold Rimmer was dead. I was just his ghost, a computer generated holographically simulated personality inspired by a detailed brain scan of the original. Over the years, I struggled with the knowledge that I was filling a dead man's shoes. And now, I'm doing it again, aren't I? Only here, I can never let up, never be myself.

"I ask you, Computer, how can I be a hero, a role model for kids like Angela, if I can't even step out of this ship without wearing this smegging costume!"

The computer made a noise rather like an electronic groan. He was so difficult when he got like this! Most of the other Rimmers had had their hang ups, but when this one got into a slump, the bitterness and low self-esteem that had been a fundamental aspect of his psychological make-up for so many years came pouring out of him like sewage from a freshly unblocked drainage pipe. "Arnold, listen—"

"No, I'm through listening. I told you, I'm sick of it! Sick of the stupid James Bond voice, sick of the ridiculous floppy wig, sick of the BacoFoil flight jacket. Sick of the women swooning for a man they think I am. Not for me. Never for me. I've had enough of the pretense. If I can't earn a reputation on my own, I don't want to be lumbered dragging his around."

The computer sighed. "None of the other Aces were ever like you. They reveled in the Ace persona."

"Yeah, well... Maybe that's what comes from all those years of being a hideous failure. Now I've finally tasted some success… I feel I want to achieve something, really achieve something, that I can call my own."

"But you have," the computer insisted. "For years now, you've owned this role. Those experiences, those triumphs, they were all yours. The name doesn't matter."

"Doesn't it?" Rimmer scoffed. "Those people out there _want_ a flashy, overbearing, fatheaded hero to swoop out of the sky and fix their problems for them. They have all these overblown expectations of what Ace is supposed to be. But, what no one seems to realize is that it's not a game, this life. It's not some childish doodle in an algebra notebook. It's real. It involves real people and real consequences. And here's me in my tin foil costume, putting on that macho voice and asking desperate people in mortal peril to trust me. No, not to trust me. To trust the legend." He shook his head in shame. "It's a travesty. A con."

"Arnie, don't let's start this—"

"All my life, I've been a failure."

"And here it comes." The computer sighed tiredly.

"Even as a child, the very thought of Arnold J. Rimmer made me cringe. I used to disappear into my imagination for days at a time, dreaming I was someone else. Someone worthwhile. Well, now I am that someone, but not as myself, no, only as a prop for something grander, a link in an endless chain. It's like some bad cosmic joke," he said. "I get to be the hero I always imagined, but only by assuming the name and reputation of another man. By living a lie." He shook his head.

"The way I see it, if I can't prove myself a hero as myself, without the Ace legend hanging over me, I might as well pack it in and head back to _Starbug_. The old posse may have been a pack of cretinous, inept space bums, but at least I didn't have to pretend with them. I mean, yes, Lister was a fetid slob with the personal hygiene of a diarrhetic seagull, but deep, deep down, buried somewhere far beneath all his irritating, disgusting habits and traits, he was, at heart, an honest man. And it's taken me all these years to realize that, somehow, somewhere along the line, a bit of that honesty must have rubbed off on me." He made a face. "I always said that little gimboid was contagious."

"So, is that what you want, then?" the computer asked. "To face danger alone, without Ace's reputation to back you up?"

Rimmer's bitter expression slackened at that. "Well, no. Not exactly," he said. "It's just…"

"Look, I think I understand, Arnold." The computer's tone gentled. "You've come a long way these past five years, but when it comes down to it, you've never actually faced up to your own demons. And until you do, you will always feel unworthy of your place as Ace."

Rimmer straightened. "I never said I was unworthy—!"

"Arnold," the computer interrupted. "I think it's time—oh my…"

"Computer?" Rimmer said, leaning forward in concern. "Are you OK?"

"I… I'm not sure. I feel…rather spaced. You don't think I could have picked up a virus…?"

Rimmer paled, his own issues sluiced aside as he suddenly remembered that flash of static on the viewer, just before the lead Simulant ship had exploded. His fingers flew over the controls, scanning the computer's mainframe. "A virus. A Simulant virus… Oh smeg, please, don't let it be that..."

"Arnold?" The computer's voice sounded weak and frightened. "I—I can't see. I think…my sensors…"

"Don't worry, Computer," Rimmer said, already hard at work using the control panel to work out a set of multidimensional coordinates and a flight plan. "I'll get you out of this."

"Do you know what it is?"

Rimmer bit his lip. "It's all right, Computer. I've seen this before," he said, struggling to keep his voice calm and reassuring. "It's called the Armageddon Virus: a nasty bit of tainted code the Simulants like to transmit to attacking vessels just before they get blown across the bridge to Silicon Hell."

"The Armageddon Virus! But, Arnold…"

"I know they say it's terminal, but trust me, there is a way to cure it. If we can just make the jump…"

Reality swirled and bent around them as Rimmer input the course instructions and piloted the ship to the one reality where he knew there was an antidote for the Armageddon Virus. He only hoped the virus his _Starbug_ had contracted all those years ago was similar enough to the virus infecting the _Wildfire_ computer for Kryten's Dove Program to work.

* * *

NOTE: (1) Last December, when I was trying to travel home for Christmas, I lost almost a full week with my family because I was trapped living in Heathrow Airport while they tried to clear the snow off the runways. They passed out crinkly silver survival blankets (I still have mine), and the material reminded me a lot of Ace's suit. For days, the halls were filled with people wrapped up in little clusters, like baked potatoes. Terrifying experience. Being alone, stranded thousands of miles from home, no certainty when or if you'd get out or if you'd have to abandon your chance at seeing your family all together and retreat back to school. Probably why I sank so hard into my latest _Red Dwarf_ obsession. But, as Holly said, you've got to laugh, haven't you.

_It's a creepy feeling wondering if you're talking to yourself. If you're out there, and you're reading, please handshake. Any and all feedback would be appreciated! :)_


	4. Chapter Three

**Chapter Three**

The jump ended in a sickening lurch and Rimmer straightened at once, scanning the space around the ship for any sign of life. A relieved smile twisted his lips as his eyes fell on a small, green craft chugging doggedly through the star-studded blackness ahead.

"Well, Computer we made it. My home dimension," he said. "And, unlike two previous Aces I could mention, I got us here without all the near-collision dramatics." His expression changed as he looked back at the craft outside, the smugness fading to be replaced by something more pensive. "Looks like I'm heading back to _Starbug_ after all."

"You really believe there's something there that can help me?" the computer asked weakly.

"I'm counting on it," Rimmer said. "Costume and silly voice be damned; without you, Computer, there is no Ace Rimmer."

"Please hurry, Arnie. I don't know how much longer…" Her voice ended in a sort of hiccup.

"Don't worry, Computer, I've switched the controls entirely to manual," he said gently. "Why don't you offline for a bit, save your runtime? I'll contact the _'Bug _and purge this virus quicker than a bulimic cheetah at a Roman banquet."

"I know I can count on you, Arnie," she whispered.

A moment later, all power on the ship went out, save for communications and minimal thrusters. Holograms didn't need life support, and Rimmer had long ago upgraded his hardlight drive to be both self-sustaining and self-charging, so the hologram simulator was offline too.

Rimmer tapped his finger against the comm. button, but before he could press it, a fist of trepidation grabbed hold of his abdominals and squeezed. It had been five years since he'd last seen Lister, Kryten, and the Cat. Five years since his old bunkmate had snared him into assuming the persona of his dying predecessor.

What would they think of him? Would they even know it was him? He didn't think he could handle playing the role in front of his old crew—particularly not in front of Lister, who knew the truth. It had felt strange then, and it would be even more awkward now.

But no, Lister had probably told them. He couldn't have kept a story like that buried under his leather deerstalker for five years. The real worry was, would they view his stint as Ace in the same light he, himself did, jeering at the inept fool beneath the wig and costume? Would they welcome him home? Or had they been all too glad to see the back of him?

"You're wasting time, you fetid smegbrain," he muttered to himself. "What does it matter what those morons think of you? The _Wildfire_ is dying. Just push the smegging button and be done with it!"

His finger sank down, the button clicked, and the viewscreen fizzed to sudden life. It was only then that he remembered he wasn't wearing Ace's wig.

"Smeg!" he hissed under his breath. But it was too late to search the cockpit. _Starbug_ had already responded to his hail.

"Ri—Rimmer? Oh my God, Rimmer, is that you?"

"'Fraid so, Listy," he said, and was surprised by a sudden powerful inclination to break into a broad smile. It wasn't that he was happy to see the little gerbil, he told himself. It was just, there was something oddly reassuring in knowing that this was the Lister from _his_ universe, the one he'd served with before he'd died, and not some alternate from a different timeline.

"But—but what are you doin' here, man?" Lister asked in his Liverpool drawl. "I thought you were off bein' Ace!"

"I am! That is…" Enough of this, Rimmer thought to himself. Time to cut to the chase. "Look, Lister, I need your help. I had a bit of a scrape with a Simulant battle fleet a few dimensions back, and it looks like the _Wildfire's _contracted a version of the Armageddon Virus. Does Kryten still have that Dove Program saved?"

"Hold on, I'll ask him," Lister said. "He's just in the back, doin' the ironin'. Meanwhile, you're welcome to dock here, on _Starbug_. I'm sure the others'll be glad to see ya."

Rimmer couldn't stop himself from asking, "Glad to see 'me'? Or Ace?"

Lister averted his eyes. Rimmer's gut gave a sinking lurch.

"I don't believe it," Rimmer said. "You didn't tell them, did you. They still think I'm dead, don't they? And now I suppose you expect me to put on that ridiculous wig and prance around pretending to be that pompous goit?"

"But I thought you _were_ that pompous goit! I mean—" Lister's expression narrowed. "You did do it, didn't you? You did become Ace?"

"Of course I did, you feckless gimboid. But that doesn't mean I want to have to play him all the time. I thought, at least in my own reality, I could drop the act for a few hours."

Lister seemed to chew on that. "Yeah," he said. "OK, I'll tell them you're coming. And, uh, Rimmer…"

"What?"

"It's, uh…" He cleared his throat. "It's good to see you, man."

Rimmer swallowed, an unexpected lump lodging just above his Adam's apple. "Uh…yeah," he coughed. "Yeah. I'll just…" He gestured at the controls.

"Right," Lister said. "See you in a tick, then."

Lister's image faded and Rimmer let out a long breath. So, Kryten and the Cat still thought he was his predecessor. He could just imagine their faces when Lister told them the truth: the shock, the denial, the snide remarks at his expense. They probably wouldn't believe a word of his adventures. Gits.

Well, he'd show them. He may not 'be' Ace, but he had been out in the multiverse for five years doing Ace's job. He wasn't the same self-defeating, petty-minded wreck of a man he'd been before. He'd helped people, saved lives, toppled dictators.

His anxiety trickled to the background as his ego began to inflate. This was his chance to prove how far he'd come, not as Ace, but as himself; to finally win the respect of his three closest acquaintances. He'd left them Arnold Rimmer, Second Technician Nobody. He'd return Arnold Rimmer, Second Technician Somebody.

Looking down at his shiny silver flight suit, he made a face and fished his light bee remote from his pocket. After a momentary debate, he deftly swapped Ace's flame retardant tin foil space jacket and trousers for an outfit he'd always longed to try, but which the _Wildfire _computer had repeatedly told him wouldn't fit the legend's flashy, futuristic space-hero image: the classic leather jacket, beige scarf, tan trousers, and high black boots of a 23rd Century Space Corps flying ace. It was a perfect match for the garb young Rimmer used to envy his eldest brother, John, on his rare visits home from the Space Corps testing base on Mars; the very uniform, in fact, that had inspired his boyhood fantasies about the adventures of Ace Rimmer to begin with. Peering at the darkened viewer screen, he watched his reflection's lips turn up in a satisfied smile. This was his Ace. This was the man he'd always dreamed he'd become.

Quickly smoothing his short, neatly parted curls—which had gotten a little flattened by Ace's wig—Rimmer linked with _Starbug_'s automatic docking system and eased the _Wildfire_ to a gentle landing, ready to greet his old crew.

The Cat, Kryten, and Lister rushed in the moment the landing bay repressurized, just in time to meet Rimmer's grin as he jumped down from the cockpit, his boots hitting the floor's metal grating with a solid clang.

Kryten stopped short, his expression shifting from neutral to reverse. "Mr. Ace, sir...?"

"Hey, Ace buddy!" the Cat cried happily, his pointed incisors gleaming in the artificial light. Then, his features collided in confusion, jolting his nose into a wrinkle of disappointment. "Wait, what happened to your hair? And your flashy suit! You used to look so _dangerous_, man! Now, you look like old toilet brush head, only dressed up in some dull, old fashioned uniform!"

Cat's words hit Rimmer's pride like a sock to the gut with brass knuckles. Rimmer stared at them both, speechless, then shot Lister a murderous look.

"I thought you said you'd explain things to them!"

"I tried, man," Lister protested, revealing a fresh lager stain on the graying t-shirt he wore under his heavily patched black jacket. "But as soon as I said 'Ace,' they both came runnin' so fast, I didn't get a chance to finish. Guess you can't blame 'em if they're jus' a little disappointed."

"A little disappointed...?" Rimmer squidged up his face like a fist, his teeth pressed together so hard it was amazing they didn't crack. This wasn't what he'd imagined. It's what he should have expected, knowing the cruel, shallow, heartless creatures they all were, but he'd dreamed of his homecoming so many times over the years—of the admiration, the respect, the eagerness to hear of his adventures—and it wasn't supposed to be like this. His return wasn't supposed to be an anticlimax.

"No, right," he said, his facial muscles relaxing but his voice still tight. "Of course you can't. Who wouldn't race to bask in the presence of that over-inflated windbag. I'm sure if you had explained to them that it was only me, the only way I'd have caught a glimpse of any of you would have been to run a scan for life forms and track you down myself."

"Wait, I'm confused," said the Cat. "Why is Ace talking like Goal Post Head?"

"Perhaps, _Monsieur Chat_," Rimmer snapped, "it's because I _am_ 'Goal Post Head.' Yes, that's right, Kryten, and you can push your optic sensors back into your rubber-tipped head. Like it or lump it, your old hologrammatic crewmate is alive and well and, more than that, I'm a success. In fact, I wouldn't be here now, except the old dimension hopper's come down with a bit of a bug. So, if Kryten could just hand over the code for the Dove Program antidote to the Armageddon Virus, I'll be on my way and out of your hair for good."

Lister blinked. "You mean, you're not stayin'?"

"Why? Should I?" Rimmer retorted archly.

Lister seemed to sink into his jacket. "It's just, I thought…"

Rimmer deflated a little. The Cat's reaction to his uniform had completely shattered his confidence, bringing all his snarky old defenses to the fore, but Lister's manner took him rather off guard. Before he could say anything, Kryten snapped out of stare-mode.

"Oh my goodness, sir, is it true? Are you really Mr. Rimmer?"

"Yes, of course I'm me, Kryten," Rimmer said. "I took over from Ace five years ago. That was his charred lightbee you lot shot off into space, not mine."

"Wait, five years?" Lister said. "Did you say you've been gone, bein' Ace, for five years?"

Rimmer shrugged. "Well, three of those were training, but on the whole, yes. Why? What's it matter?"

Lister, Kryten, and the Cat shared a long look.

"Well, sir, you only left _Starbug_ five months ago."

"Yeah, buddy," the Cat added. "Your scent hasn't even completely gone from your seat in the cockpit. Every time I walk by, I get a blast of hard-light hologram right in the olfactory glands. It's like a cross between the microwave and the structural integrity field."

Rimmer stared, rather disconcerted by Cat's description of his scent. Although he was quite aware he was, essentially, an electronic life form, he'd never stopped thinking of himself as a human being.

"Yes, well, that's only natural," he said, covering up his discomfort. "Time moves at different rates in different dimensions. I've been gone for five years, relative time."

"You mean, you've been off visiting your relatives?" the Cat asked in confusion.

Rimmer rolled his eyes. "No, tuna brain. Relative time. _Eigenzeit_. The individual perception of time that can vary according to speed and perspective and which dimension you're in. Einstein explained it in his theory of relativity."

Lister stepped back. "Wait, are you telling me you understand the theory of relativity?"

"Don't look too shocked, will you," Rimmer said coldly. "I'm not like an expert or anything. But anyone who hops through space and time for a living should be familiar with at least the basic concepts. Now, Kryten, I'm sorry to whinge on about this, but I really do need that code. I got the _Wildfire _computer to offline, but she doesn't have long. If she succumbs to that virus, I'll be stuck here. For good."

"We wouldn't want that," Lister said, and Rimmer was surprised to hear the bitter sarcasm in his voice.

"What's with you?" he asked. "I thought you wanted me to leave here and be Ace. You were the one who goaded me into it all those years ago. If you hadn't—" He trailed off, not sure he wanted to admit his mixed feelings in front of the Cat and Kryten. "Oh, never mind. Kryten, do you have the code?"

"I do, sir, but—"

"Then come on up to the cockpit with me. I'll show you where everything is."

_To Be Continued..._

Thanks so much for the feedback! I'm really glad you're enjoying this story. I'm having a lot of fun fixing it up and plotting out the end...which is still a long way away. I know it's been sort of a slow start, but there'll be some action coming up as the real plot gets going and hopefully a few surprises, and some time travel as well. Thanks for reading, and for reviewing, I hope you'll stay tuned for next time!_  
_


	5. Chapter Four

Hi! Thanks so much for the encouraging feedback! It really helped while I was fixing up this chapter, which was kind of a convoluted mess of dialogue, thoughts, and notes. I think I've sorted it out now, though, and even though it's rather long, I decided to keep it together as one chapter rather than split it up into three. I hope you like it!

**Chapter Four**

In order to transfer the Dove Program antidote to the _Wildfire_ computer, Kryten had to link his own brain with the ship's mainframe and run a detailed virus scan to identify any deviations or anomalies that would inhibit the program's effectiveness. Then working through his direct link-up, he would upload the program and activate the code, all the time hoping his firewall program would keep him insulated from infection.

"How long do you reckon this'll take, Kryten?" Mr. Rimmer had asked.

"No more than forty-five minutes, sir," the mechanoid had replied.

Mr. Rimmer had seemed impatient, even a little concerned, but he'd nodded and, once he'd shown Kryten the correct port for the hook-up, he'd left the docking bay and disappeared down the corridor.

Kryten was glad he'd gone. Mr. Rimmer had always been a tidy man. His finicky neatness had bordered on obsessive compulsive. The cockpit here was like a demonstration of that. It was spotless: the dashboard lovingly polished, the seat-tilt control well oiled. There wasn't so much as a dust bunny or a fleck of tobacco ash under the seat for Kryten to hoover up. To make matters worse, as a hologram Mr. Rimmer had been incapable of producing any of the entropic mess most organic life forms couldn't help but leave in their wake: food-encrusted dishes, malodorous laundry, backed-up toilets, filmy soap-scum-covered showers. All he'd ever done, for as long as Kryten had known him, was whine and complain about Mr. Lister being the kind of slobby, feckless human that made a cleaning droid's mechanical life worthwhile, the pompous, farty little smee-hee.

"Kryten?"

The mechanoid nearly jumped out of his artificial skin. That had been a woman's voice, a low, sultry whisper right his ear.

"Yipe! Who said that?"

"It's me. The _Wildfire_."

Kryten felt foolish. "Why are you whispering?"

"Is he gone?"

"Who? Mr. Rimmer? Yes, he left several minutes ago."

"Good," the computer said, and suddenly the entire cockpit came on-line. Kryten stared in confusion.

"But, how—? I thought—"

"That I'd contracted the Armageddon Virus?" the computer's voice was smug. "I did. I've had it several times, to tell the truth."

"And you survived intact?"

"I'm a state-of-the-art Space Corps Special Services prototype, Kryten, not a clapped out mining transport vessel," she pointed out. "Also, I was fortunate that one of my Aces was a software engineer in his previous life...and let me tell you, if you think your Arnie is anal, keeping his underwear on coat hangers and working out a balanced rotation schedule for his shoe trees, this guy was infinitely worse. His finicky, superstitious habits drove me utterly mad. But he had the perfect mind for that kind of precise, persnickety work and his upgrades saved my life. Since then, my anti-virus software has been able to deal with pretty much anything the multiverse has thrown at me."

"So, you just pretended to be shutting down? Why?"

"So Ace would come here. Kryten, he needs your help. Yours and the Cat's and Lister's. Especially Lister's."

"What do you…? Hold on." Kryten checked his head was on tight. "You mean it's true? Mr. Rimmer—_our_ Mr. Rimmer... He actually became Ace?"

"Of course it's true. He's one of the best I've trained. Earnest, responsible—"

"No," Kryten shook his head in denial.

"—and unlike so many of the others who just wanted to play 'Casanova the Sexy Action Hero,' this Ace actually _gets_ the big picture," she insisted. "He understands that taking up this life is accepting an obligation to others. It's not a game for him to enjoy. He's told me often that this kind of responsibility, this kind of recognition is what he'd always dreamt of. But he's miserable, Kryten. His mind is full of deeply embedded emotional blocks that continually prevent him from reaching his true potential. He lashes out against success like a petulant child, and it's dragging him down."

"Yes, that sounds like our Mr. Rimmer," Kryten acknowledged. "But, what can we do? He's always been like that. It's a result of his upbringing, of his failure to achieve even one of his myriad unrealistic life goals, of his—"

"I know my Aces, Kryten," the computer cut him off. "Every one of them has had hang ups of one sort or another. But of all the Aces I've trained, your Arnie's issues are by far the closest to the original."

"Um, pardon my rather blunt refutation of your assessment, but Mr. Ace and Mr. Rimmer are nothing alike," Kryten stated. "The original Ace was a kind, confident, giving man. Mr. Rimmer is a petty, cowardly, immature, self-serving—"

"Double. They're two sides of the same coin," the computer said. "Or, to use a closer metaphor, twin trunks from the same acorn. Their lives diverged only following a single choice made during their shared childhood. If you view the multiverse like a tree, the other Aces were all branches off of other branches, but not these two. Up until that one choice was made, Ace and Arnie were a single stem growing from the same seed."

"I don't understand," Kryten said. "What terrible event could possibly have caused such a dramatic split?"

"At age seven, Ace was kept down a year at school, but not Arnie. Your Arnie's mother seduced, then blackmailed the headmaster to get him to advance the boy with the rest of his class—and she never let Arnold forget the debt he owed her for coming to his 'rescue.' That was fine for her ego: she owned the headmaster and she didn't have to live with the public embarrassment of having a son who'd been kept down. But Arnie floundered badly. Unable to keep up with his classmates, and with no support structure at home, he fell into the habit of making excuses for his failures, living in his daydreams rather than applying his mind to his schoolwork or learning how to socialize with his peers."

Kryten nodded slowly. "That explains so much. And Mr. Ace?"

"Ace's mother also seduced the headmaster, but her attempt at blackmail backfired, and she took it badly, ultimately becoming less of an overbearing force in her son's life. For his part, Ace recognized he'd been given a second chance. The humiliation of having to repeat a year was nearly unbearable, but he buckled down, learned to ask questions, to take part in the lessons. He learned to fight back, but not to like himself."

"Extraordinary," Kryten said. "Then, that implies Mr. Ace escaped Mr. Rimmer's spiral into failure, but not in time to avoid his own self-loathing beast."

"My Ace and your Arnie were more alike than either of them could bear to admit," the computer said. "Seeing each other for the first time came as a real blow. They were inverse copies, each wearing the other's hidden self on his sleeve. My Ace saw the sensitive man cripplingly entwined in the defenses and neuroses of a lifetime. Your Arnie saw the lonely, isolated man at Ace's core. All secrets were bared. And they took it hard."

"And that resentment is what's keeping Mr. Rimmer from achieving his potential, as you put it?"

"It's a bit more complicated than that I'm afraid, Kryten," the computer said. "It's a question of self-worth. Ace was undeniably successful in his career, but deep down, he felt inadequate. He feared his decision to indulge his love for flying made him selfish, even immature. That's another area where Ace and Arnie were alike. At heart, they both carried the same drive: to be someone they liked, who was worthy of being liked by others. Ace was never able to capture that sense, which was why he gave so much of himself, why he never formed lasting relationships, why he jumped at the chance to test pilot a dimension-hopping prototype even though, back then, it meant he'd never be able to go home again. Your Arnie's the same only, where Ace's longing to be worthwhile made him pour his heart into everything he did, Arnie built walls, keeping his true heart locked tight behind a fortress of psychological defenses."

Kryten nodded, understanding at last. "I see the problem," he said. "But at the risk of seeming slower than a dial-up modem, I'm afraid I still fail to see what we can do for him. If five years of acting the hero hasn't staunched Mr. Rimmer's self-loathing, how would returning to _Starbug_ make any difference? He wasn't exactly Mr. Popularity among the crew."

"It was a risk, I'll admit it," the _Wildfire_ said. "Arnie's in a fragile place right now. A push in the wrong direction could crush his ego entirely. But, although you shared a rather dysfunctional relationship, there's no denying that you three matter to him. You matter a great deal more than he'll admit, even to me. If he can prove himself a proper hero to you, together Lister, you, and the Cat hold enough influence over his psyche to induce him into finally accepting himself as the worthwhile man I know he can be. But, it won't be easy. For any of you."

Kryten looked wary. "What do you have in mind?"

"If Arnie's ever to accept his place as Ace, he'll have to believe it all came from him. So, when in doubt, stick with the basics," she said. "In this case, the classic motif that heroes are forged, not grown. I can drive him to the swordsmith's shop, but I can't make him step inside. That's where you come in. His crewmates, his companions. You can walk in with him, give him the encouragement he needs to face down the flames. Are you with me, Kryten?"

"Well, I…"

"Kryten?" she pressed.

"I suppose," the mechanoid winced, still unsure that any of this was possible.

"Good," said the computer. "Now, listen closely…"

* * *

Lister sat at the table in the common room, watching Rimmer browse through the stack of classic car magazines that had been functioning as a prop for a lopsided shelf. He looked so different in that flight outfit. Taller, his chest and shoulders broader. Even his short curls seemed less like something he'd seen Kryten pull out of the Cat's shower drain and more, well, styled. One might almost call him…dare he say it…handsome.

But he was still Rimmer. If his snidy voice hadn't proved it in the docking bay, the way his nostrils flared as he scanned through the articles was a dead give-away. So much had changed on _Starbug_ in the past few months, Lister found it comfortably reassuring to know his former bunkmate was still the same abrasively irritating smeghead he'd always known. It brought a sense of home, of a return to normalcy that hadn't been present since Rimmer left.

"So, what's it like?" he asked.

"What's what like?" Rimmer responded without looking up.

"You know," Lister said. "Bein' Ace. Livin' the life of a hero?"

Rimmer jammed the magazine he was holding back under the shelf and sank into the opposite seat, somewhat gratified that Lister was showing some curiosity at last.

"It's fine, Lister," he said. "Nothing like I thought it'd be. The people out there…they really rely on you. They trust you to know just the right thing, do just the right thing to keep them safe from the monsters of the universe. There's never a time out, you always have to be at the top of your game."

"And you've been all right with that?"

"Just ask the _Wildfire_'s computer," he said with a very slight smile. "She'll give you a glowing report of my adventures…when she's feeling better."

Lister shook his head with a snort. "I just can't believe it, man."

"What?"

"You," he said. "That you did it. Became a hero. I mean, you couldn't even keep the Space Corps directives straight." He rested his elbow on the table and leaned forward, conspiratorially. "Come on, man, it's just us here. Why don't you admit the truth?"

Rimmer seemed genuinely confused. "What truth?"

"The truth that you sucked as Ace and you want to come back to _Starbug_ with us. I'll understand, truly."

Rimmer's expression opened wide for a moment, then clamped down tight.

"You don't believe me. You don't believe I've succeeded as Ace."

"Well, how can I?" Lister retorted. "I mean, Ace was…he was confident. Happy, secure. When he came into the room, it was like all the lights turned up to full power just to reflect his energy. But you… Just look at you, man. You're miserable. You're like some kid who's been rejected from his school's zero-g football team. How can you have been a successful Ace and still be so…so sad? I'm not buyin' it."

"Sad?" Rimmer stood slowly, a strange fire lighting behind his dark, greenish-brown eyes. "You think I'm sad?"

"Yeah," Lister said, leaning back in his chair. "I think you're more miserable now than you were when you were stuck here with us. An' that's sayin' a lot."

Rimmer's eyes flashed and his nostrils flared. "Is that right?"

"Yeah."

"That's what you think."

"Yeah!"

"Well, did it ever occur to you, Lister," he snapped with a vehemence Lister had rarely heard from him, "that a person could succeed at playing a part, and succeed spectacularly, but still feel a failure underneath?"

Rimmer's face paled then, as if he longed to physically swallow those words. His eyes darted frantically around the room and he turned quickly, stalking toward the corridor. His stride was the stride of a man fighting to convince himself he was far too proud to run away. Lister stared after him but, before he could get up to follow, Kryten came shambling into the room at his top speed.

"Mr. Lister," he said, "I've just been talking with the _Wildfire's _computer. There's something she thinks you should know about Mr. Ace..." He looked behind him, down the empty corridor. "Was that Mr. Ace just then, sir?"

"Nah, jus' Rimmer," Lister said. "So come on, Krytes, what do you want to tell me?"

But Kryten had slipped into worry-mode and wouldn't be distracted. "He seemed upset. Did something happen here?"

Lister shrugged, covering a twinge of guilt. The hurt that had overtaken Rimmer's expression when he'd tried to get him to confess his real reasons for showing up had seemed disquietingly genuine.

"He'll get over it," Lister said, more to convince himself than to reassure Kryten. "I mean, the man's miserable, Kryten. It's obvious jus' to look at him. Rimmer's never been cut out for that hero smeg. All this is just his way of sayin' he wants to come back to _Starbug_ without losing face."

"Did he tell you that, sir?" Kryten asked anxiously.

"No," Lister said. "But, that's gotta be it, doesn't it? An' maybe now he's back, he can give up bein' Ace and hand the mantle off to someone who possesses more backbone than a sea cucumber."

"Sir, you don't understand," Kryten said. "Mr. Rimmer has been doing well as Ace. Surprisingly well. He has no intention of coming back...at least, not yet. But he is in a very fragile emotional state. According to the _Wildfire_'s computer, Mr. Rimmer is struggling to salvage his identity. To earn a sense of self-worth as himself, apart from the Ace legend. Your confrontation just now may have done a great deal of harm."

"Harm?" Lister scoffed. "No way, man. I just told him..." He trailed off, his brain spontaneously volunteering to reply their conversation as it might have sounded from Rimmer's point of view. "...ah, smeg."

Kryten wrung his hands. "We must find him, sir."

Lister sighed and ran his hands over his face, more upset than he could quite admit at the news Rimmer really didn't plan to come back. Lister had been suffering from guilt attacks and nightmares on and off since Rimmer had left, worrying that his goading had gotten the neurotic coward killed or worse. Seeing him again, solid and intact and so undeniably _himself_ had come as a powerful relief. He wanted Rimmer to stay. But, what could he say? That Holly had been right to bring Rimmer back to keep him sane? That he'd been going slowly nuts without the uptight smeghead around to provoke him—or for him to provoke? No. Never. Not out loud, anyway.

He sighed again, then grabbed his jacket and stomped off down the corridor.

"All right, I think I know where he might have gone," he said over his shoulder. "Come on, Kryten, let's go."

* * *

"Smeg him anyway, the festering little pustule. And smeg me for thinking I could…that I could expect them to…"

Rimmer swallowed hard. He glanced down at his perfectly fitted flight jacket; yet another costume he hadn't earned. The sight of the soft leather and shiny boots he'd so childishly admired filled him with mortification. The Cat was right, it was old fashioned. He looked like the founding member of the James Bigglesworth Look-Alike Society.

Angrily, Rimmer hit the reset on his lightbee remote. There was a brief shimmer, and he was suddenly back in Ace's despised silver flight suit. Only, this time there was a difference. Instead of a wig, Ace's long, manageable hair had become a permanent part of the image.

"This is what they want," he said bitterly, feeling utterly defeated. "It's what everyone wants. I should have known better than to try to drop the act."

The metal stairwell that linked the living area with the sleeping quarters wasn't much of a brooding spot, but it did have a thin window with a view of the stars. Rimmer stared out, not at the distant dots, but at the blackness that filled the space between them, rendering them unreachable, untouchable.

The stars had seemed much closer when he was a boy, back on Io. After the courts had granted him independence from his parents at age fourteen, upholding his claims of emotional and physical abuse, he'd felt vindicated, free. He'd left Io House and used the settlement money to enroll in flight school, where he'd actually excelled for the first time in his young life. At sixteen, he'd finally reached the minimum age for consideration by the Space Corps, and he and his flight tutor, a man called Donald who'd spent his evenings working as an onstage hypnotherapist, had been convinced that as soon as they saw him fly, he'd be on his way up the ziggurat of command.

It hadn't happened that way, of course. The Academy expected its entrants to be prepared in every subject, and the entrance exam was assigned at random. Arnold's best subject was military history, and he'd devoted three full months of his life to revising that topic, brimming with naive, teenage confidence that Lady Luck would turn a kind eye to all his hard work.

The exam that appeared on his screen was on chemistry. Arnold had never actually studied chemistry. He'd left Io House the semester before his year was scheduled to begin chemistry lab.

So, Arnold had, very calmly, raised his hand and kept it raised until the proctor—a very bored-looking commander—waved him over. He'd marched up to his desk and snapped to smart attention.

"Problem, son?" he'd asked.

"You might say that, sir," Arnold had replied, and launched into a succinct explanation of his position. There were no tears, no pleading, no hysterics. He made his case with calm, rational logic, then formally requested he be allowed to swap the chemistry exam for military history. The proctor had been impressed.

"It's the hallmark of maturity to recognize your limits, Mr. Rimmer," he'd said. "If Napoleon had been more like you, he might have waited 'till spring to march on Russia. You're here, you're prepared, what's the topic matter. Sit back at your station, and I'll send you the exam on military history."

Arnold had opened his eyes satisfied with a job well done. Until he looked around and realized he was lying in an infirmary bed hooked up to an IV. It was a day and a half later, he'd missed his flight test and there was a note on his medical chart reading 'mentally unstable.' His imagination had cooked up that little exchange with the proctor. He learned from a sniggering orderly that his real, conscious self had lapsed into an hysterical fit and been carted from the exam room by three MPs.

The nurses had assured him he could try again next year, but young Arnold had been too furious, and too impatient, to wait. He'd enlisted as a private and, despite his request to be assigned to a test base or flying squad, he'd been assigned as third technician on a mining ship—the lowest rank in the Space Corps.

Even then, he'd been undaunted. Third technician may not be much, but it was a start, and if he could just pass the astronavigation engineer's exam he'd be promoted to lieutenant, lickety split. No sweat for a kid who'd risen to the top of his class at flight school.

The astronavigation questions posed by the Space Corps were nothing like the basic, practical questions young Arnold had aced in flight school. These questions dealt with the theory of space flight, the mathematics of navigation and engine performance. Arnold could manipulate a control panel, navigate his way around moons and through asteroid fields, and even do limited repairs on a damaged shuttle, but he didn't have clue one about the complex equations behind it all. And so, he'd failed. Still undaunted, he'd enrolled in a special tutorial class designed for enlisted men and women who aimed to take the exam.

The tutorial was aimed at secondary school graduates who had a strong background in physics and higher mathematics; namely calculus and trigonometry. Arnold had never actually graduated from Io House, he'd just received a standard certificate acknowledging he'd attended the institution when he told them he was leaving. He'd also never taken physics—his year was supposed to start physics after chemistry—and the highest he'd gone in math was second level algebra. Too proud to admit he found the tutorial lessons incomprehensible, and trained from early childhood never to ask for help, he'd taken his notes, done his best to memorize the alien symbols, and tried the exam again. He'd failed. And he'd failed the next year, and the next.

By the time he was twenty-two, prepping to retake the exam had become so painful, his subconscious developed an elaborate system of procrastination that allowed him to convince his conscious self he was studying his guts out without actually having to endure the emotional agony of plowing through reams of information he didn't understand. He learned to spend months creating superbly detailed revision timetables, intricately color coded works of art that left him only a few hours for actual revision. The panic that broke out as a result often led him to resort to smoking, amphetamines, and illegal learning drugs, and the crash inevitably ended in a humiliating nervous breakdown, the most infamous of which left him convinced he was a fish.

After twelve long years of languishing in failure, Arnold was at last granted a promotion to Second Technician as a matter of course and assigned command of Z Shift, a redundant back-up maintenance crew that was given the jobs deemed too menial for the ship's service droids. Still it was his command, and running it became his life. He took maintenance courses, read endless books on public speaking and personnel management. A year later, he was assigned to bunk with a third technician, David Lister. Two years after that, he was dead. Dead, at thirty-one, never having gotten off the bottom rung. Never having become a Space Corps pilot, or having had the chance to command his own ship. Never having proved his worth to the family that had abused and then rejected him.

It just wasn't fair.

And so, his hologram stood staring into the blackness between the stars, floundering to come to grips with a heroic identity he hadn't earned and didn't deserve. He was under no delusion that he'd been chosen to be the next Ace. He'd seen the warning message the first Ace had placed in the heading of his account of their meeting, and was quite aware his immediate predecessor had been forced to recruit him by default. Was it any wonder his former crewmates refused to accept him as anything but a failure?

The clang of footsteps on the metal stairs barely encouraged him to lift his head. "Lister," he said tiredly, "if that's you, you can turn around and head back the other way."

"Oh, excuse me," came a woman's voice. "No one told me we had a visitor." Her footsteps came to a startled stop. "Oh my God," she said. "It's you."

Rimmer straightened slowly and turned to face her. His jaw dropped. He knew her, and he also knew she wasn't from his dimension. He'd met her in another reality, on another _Starbug_, several years before, where she'd been the last human alive and Third Technician David Lister had been brought back as a hologram to keep her sane…

"Kris? Kristine Kochanski?"

"Ace…"

"But… But what are you doing _here_?" they chorused, rushing over to take each other's hands.

"You should be dimensions away," Rimmer said in Ace's rich, plummy voice, "with Dave! Not on this flea pit of a ship."

"And what about you?" Kochanski said, looking him up and down. "Shouldn't you be off rescuing damsels and repairing hologram simulation suites?" She lowered her eyes. "I owe you everything, Ace," she said. "If you hadn't come when you did, my Dave's file would have become permanently corrupted, and I'd have lost him forever."

"No. Don't thank me, really. I just did what anyone in my place would do."

She shook her head with a fond smile. "Ace, after that horrid fiasco with the polymorph, the entire deck was a blazing inferno. No one could have survived that, not even Kryten. But you counted on the polymorph's shapeshifting ability and sense of self-preservation to protect you, and it worked. You dove straight into the flames and brought back Dave's hologram disk. You saved his life. And mine. Oh, I… I just—"

Kochanski planted a powerful kiss right on Rimmer's lips, just as Lister came clomping up the stairwell, Kryten skidding to a stop a few paces behind.

Several seemingly endless moments later, Kochanski broke the kiss and beamed at Lister, completely oblivious to the stunned, betrayed look crawling across his pudgy features.

"Lister, why didn't you tell me Ace Rimmer had come on board?" she scolded. "I could have set up a real hero's welcome for him!"

"Looked to me like you were doin' jus' fine." Lister scowled. "How far were you plannin' to go, a simple fanfare or the full twenty-one gun salute?"

Rimmer turned away, running a hand across his mouth. Kochanski frowned.

"Must you drag everything down to your crass level? Ace Rimmer is a friend. And in the normal, mature, adult world, it is perfectly acceptable to greet an old friend with a kiss."

She spoke slowly, like she was addressing a dog or a very young child. Lister bristled.

"So, that's considered etiquette in your circle, then?" he retorted. "You run into some bloke you haven't seen in a few years and jus' ram your tongue down his throat? Call me crazy, but I don't remember seein' that in those Jane Austen World games of yours."

Kochanski sucked in her cheeks, but refused to let herself rise to him. "Don't mind him, Ace," she said, giving his arm a supportive squeeze. "This Lister is an irritant I have to put up with until I can get back to _my_ reality and _my_ Dave. You make yourself at home. Kryten, why don't you come help me whip us all up a special supper?" She smiled at Rimmer. "I can't tell you how good it'll be to finally have someone to talk to whose vocabulary ranges beyond simple one and two-syllable words!"

With that, she swept past Lister and danced down the stairs to Kryten, leaving the two men alone.

Rimmer spoke first. "Lister, I can explain—"

"No, no need," Lister said with an airy coldness. "Was it even you she was kissin', or were you jus' acceptin' it for the _real_ Ace Rimmer?"

He could see his words had hurt, and Lister had meant them to hurt. He'd harbored an abiding passion for Kristine Kochanski since before the radiation accident wiped out the _Red Dwarf_ crew, and Rimmer knew it. All right, so this Kristine Kochanski came from an alternate universe. She was taller than the Kochanski he'd known, she had a different accent, she'd grown up rich, and could barely stand to share the same breathing space with him, but that didn't make any difference. She'd fallen in love with his alternate self back in her own dimension, and Lister was fully convinced if he was patient enough she'd eventually come to appreciate him too. That's why, Ace or no Ace, Rimmer had absolutely no business letting her kiss him, no matter the circumstances.

The angry barb had escaped his lips before he had time to think. In response, Lister had expected defensiveness, insults, stinging taunts regarding Kochanski's obvious loathing for him. But he hadn't expected what happened next. A change seemed to wash over Rimmer. It was subtle—a softening of his expression, the straightening of his shoulders, but suddenly, Lister felt that he didn't know the man standing before him at all.

"Skipper," this man said in a kind, though cheerless tone, clamping a strong hand on his shoulder as he passed by him on the stairs, "there is only one Ace Rimmer. And we all must accept that in the end."

_To Be Continued..._

Opinions, criticisms, comments, all are welcome here. Please review! :)_  
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	6. Chapter Five

**Chapter Five**

"Kryten, old son, you've outdone yourself. This meal is better than the dishes I tasted during my excursion to the annual food festival on Suirotapallafocirocaxar Prime. How you managed to pull together a feast like this with stores scavenged from derelict space vehicles is a wonder to me."

Cat paused with his fork halfway to his mouth. "Suiro—where?"

Kryten couldn't blush, but he did a fair job of mimicking a bashful wave. "Sir, you flatter me. It's only rehydrated chicken parts in soy-protein gravy."

"Raw materials handled by a master. With a meal of this quality, I don't dare speculate what you have planned for afters."

"Then, sir, you are in for a treat. I've prepared a special agar jelly with lumps of simulated fruit and a whipped carrageen topping."

Ace's eyebrows disappeared under his fringe. "Then what are we waiting for? Bring forth the masterpiece, old top."

As Kryten scampered to the kitchen area in a paroxysm of delight. Ace turned a wry smirk to Kochanski, who giggled behind her hand.

"Oh, Ace, you are terrible," she said, slapping his shiny sleeve. Lister rolled his eyes and dropped his fork to his plate with a disgusted clatter.

"Oh, Ace, you are terrible!" he mimicked her. "God, can you even hear yourself? The food's awful. It's always awful. You're jus' teasin' Kryten with all these backhanded compliments."

"Who's to say they're backhanded?" Ace retorted in his affable way. "I've spoken only the truth. Have you ever been to the Suirotapallafocirocaxar Prime Food Festival? Compared to the slop the GELFs there pass off as edible, Kryten's rehydrated chicken parts are a rare treat."

"They were pretty good," Cat agreed, daintily dabbing the corners of his mouth with a silk napkin.

"Cat!" Lister exclaimed.

"Well, they were," Cat said. "Better than last week's meat curry, anyway. Old butter-pat head never did tell us exactly what meat was in that stuff. And with all those spices and things mucking up the scent, my nostrils couldn't make a solid identification."

"My guess is it was space weevil," Kochanski said, wrinkling her nose in distaste. "It's always space weevil when he won't say. But Ace doesn't want to hear this."

"Ace," Lister scoffed. "He's really got you fooled, hasn't he. Why don't you drop the act, Rimmer? We all get what you're tryin' to do."

"Lister, leave him alone." Kochanski glared firmly, the sharp glare of an officer upbraiding an unruly underling. Lister bristled.

"No, no, it's all right," Ace said kindly. "Poor Dave's still sore over that kiss, aren't you Skipper? Well, there's no need to worry, old friend. Our charming Kris has eyes for only one man. And he isn't me."

"He isn't you either, so don't go getting any ideas," Kochanski added, but her expression turned slightly contrite when Ace gave her a disapproving look.

Lister scowled and turned his head toward the door to the kitchen, where he could just see Kryten happily pottering back and forth, putting his finishing touches on the translucent cubes of gelatinous dessert he'd spooned into individual glasses. His knotted stomach gave a lurch and he got to his feet. "Look, guys, I don't feel so good," he said. "I'm going to the medi-unit for somethin' to settle me stomach."

"Then I'll go with you—" Ace started to rise, but Lister shook his head.

"I can handle this on me own, thanks," he said bitterly. "Wouldn't want your little fan club to get all disappointed."

Ace's expression fell slightly. "Skipper, I understand you're upset, but I head back to the big black on the morrow. I don't want us to part company on bad terms—"

"Save it, Rimmer, OK?" Lister snapped, swiping his half-empty beer can from the table. "I'll see you guys later."

* * *

Lister didn't go to the medical unit. He didn't pay much attention to where he was going, just so long as it was away from Rimmer's overblown Ace stories, Kochanski's ridiculous fangirl giggles and Kryten's agar jelly.

That's why he was startled to find himself in the docking bay staring up at the gleaming red exterior of Ace's _Wildfire._

He stared at it for several minutes, running his eyes over the sleek lines, the polished chrome. Then, he slammed his beer can against the doorframe and lobbed the crumpled aluminum cylinder straight at the windshield. It bounced off harmlessly and rolled somewhere under a row of panels that lined the wall.

He was just turning to leave, when the ship's lights caught him in their glare.

"David Lister, I presume?" a sultry, female voice spoke. Lister blinked and shielded his eyes.

"Who's askin'?"

"Is Ace with you?"

"Does it look like he's with me?" Lister retorted. "An' will you switch off those smeggin' lights? I can't see a smeggin' thing."

The lights dimmed. "Better?" the disembodied voice asked snidely.

Lister blinked watery eyes up at the empty cockpit, his confusion melting away. "You're the _Wildfire_ computer, aren't you?" he said.

"And you're an insensitive squid-haired cretin. I know what happened in the stairwell."

"Yeah. That Judas, Rimmer, snogged my Krissie."

"_Your_ Krissie?" the computer scoffed.

Lister was not in the mood to be picked at by a computer. He launched an f-bomb and followed up with a few creative suggestions concerning the specifics of where and how.

"Nice. Arnie never told me you were so witty."

"Shut up."

"Not until I've had my say," the computer snapped. "You really messed things up properly, didn't you."

"What are you talkin' about?"

"Your petty, selfish attempt to return to how things were. Putting Arnie down, denying his success, stamping out his pride. All to keep your relationship frozen in time. Because, that's what you want, isn't it? No growth, no improvement. Just childish pranks and insults, on and on, year after pointless year, until you're both too old to break the habit."

"That's not what I did," Lister retorted.

"Isn't it?" the _Wildfire_ shot back. "I've known hundreds of Listers throughout the multiverse. Male ones, female ones, talking dogs, evolved chickens. Trust me, your reaction is hardly original. You missed Rimmer, you worried about him while he was away, and now he's back you want him to stay. But not as a success, no. Not as someone who can show you up, put you in second place. You want him back just as he was, a socially-regressed emotional cripple. Well, congratulations, kiddo. You got him."

"What exactly are you saying to me?"

"I'm saying, curry-for-brains, that you have single-handedly turned the clock back on a project that has taken me years of patient, painstaking work. No, let me correct that—you didn't reset the clock, you sent it running backwards. Arnie was standing at the crossroads, perched on a delicate turning point. And now he's been pushed further back than he was when he first took up Ace's mantle."

"Hold on. I don't understand," Lister said.

"Then let me explain," the computer said coldly. And she did. Over the next fifteen minutes, she explained everything, her entire plan to coax Rimmer to finally reject his crippling self-loathing and accept himself as a valued and worthwhile man. A hero who could own the name Ace Rimmer, not be owned by it.

"Not be owned by it…" Lister repeated quietly.

"Starting to get the picture now, smeg-for-brains?" the _Wildfire_ said, but her tone was no longer so cold.

"That's what happened, isn't it?" Lister said. "On that stairwell, when I said… When I told him…" He sighed and ran a hand over his trailing locks.

"He came here tryin' to salvage his identity, to earn a sense of self-worth, and what do I do? I push him over the edge." Lister shook his head, slowly jabbing his fist to the wall. "He just gave up, man. Surrendered, right before my eyes. An' I didn't even realize…"

"Dave…"

"It was weird, you know? Rimmer just seemed to vanish. And there was Ace. Like, for real. Ace. I've never seen anything like it."

"No." The computer seemed to sigh. "Dave, I know you didn't mean to do this. But Arnie's in pain right now. He's rejected his own personality because it hurts too much to be Arnold Rimmer. But Ace isn't a costume to hide behind when things get tough. For Ace to be strong, he has to be integrated, a fully realized personality. As long as Arnie keeps donning and discarding Ace like a mask, as long as he keeps turning away from his heart, keeping his hurt and anger bottled up deep inside, the Ace you saw will have all the depth and solidity of a playing card…and all the volatility of nitroglycerine."

Lister glanced up at the ship's dimmed lights. "What can I do?"

"For whom? For Arnie, or for yourself?"

Lister made a face. "Come on, don't give me that. How do I… How can I get Rimmer back to bein' the trumped-up smeghead he was when he first arrived?"

"Honestly? I don't think you can."

"But you just—"

"Your ties are strong, but I'm afraid they don't go back far enough to have the kind of impact we're looking for," the computer told him. "You were close enough to push him over the edge, but your relationship's just not strong enough to pull him back up. At least, not as far as we need him to go."

"So that's it, then?" Lister said, his anger swelling. "There's nothing we can do? Rimmer's gone, Ace is a flimsy canister of sublimated anger waitin' to explode, and that's it?"

The computer seemed to think for a moment. "There is a way," she said. "If it works, it could get Arnie back on the right track. But it's very dangerous."

"Dangerous how?"

"Dangerous as in one wrong move could create a massive temporal paradox that could rip a hole in the multiverse dangerous."

"Ah," Lister nodded. "That kind of dangerous. Well, we've faced worse."

"Oh, I don't think you have."

"Come on. Simulants? GELFs? That backwards universe? And how about that time we went back in time to order a curry and ended up savin' Kennedy's life an' allowin' the Russians to win the space race? We straightened that one out without any help. Then there's that pan-dimensional liquid beast and those brain-sucking Psirens and the suicide squid… You can't tell me after all that we can't handle a little time travel."

"It's not the time travel I'm worried about. That part's easy. All you have to do is set up a remote link between me and your _Starbug_'s mainframe, and I can talk you through that, no sweat. It's what's waiting at the other end. That's where the challenge lies. And I'm just not sure you're prepared."

"Prepared for what? What kind of horrible, hideous, lurking monsters would we have to face to jolt Rimmer out of hiding and restore his self-esteem? What challenge could possibly be so terrible that you keep hedgin' around it instead of just comin' out and tellin' me what the smeg it is?"

Lister thought he was prepared for anything she could throw at him, but when she spoke, her response sent chills down his spine.

"Arnie's family."

"Ah. Right. Smeg."

"You still want to help?"

"I'm in," Lister said. "I've always wanted to meet the weirdos who made Rimmer what he was. An' seriously, they can't be that bad, can they? I mean, they're jus' people, yeah, and even Rimmer admits they're pretty successful. His brothers are what, a Space Corps captain, a test pilot, and the other one's in special services, right? They don't just hand those positions out."

The _Wildfire_ computer laughed, but it was an eerie, humorless sound. Lister swallowed despite himself.

"Yeah, well, whatever. I did the damage, I'll help fix it. Just tell me what to do."

_To Be Continued..._


	7. Chapter Six

**Chapter Six **

"Now Ace, I want to be certain that you're completely, one hundred percent sure about this," Kochanski said as the pair of them walked down the corridor toward the docking bay. Kryten and the Cat followed a few steps behind, Kryten loaded down with bags and parcels and the Cat daintily carrying a red silk scarf. "I wouldn't want to put you out of your way..."

"As I told you last night," Ace said, taking her hand and giving it a reassuring pat. "It's no imposition at all. A hop here, a skip there, and I'll DJ you safe and snug to your home dimension before your dear ol' Dave has a chance to burn the breakfast crumpets."

"Oh, thank you," Kochanski said. "It's just...Lister, you know? He makes me so furious. I mean, here he has me actually feeling guilty about leaving this testosterone swamp, when all I want in this life is to hold my own sweet Dave again. Do you understand, Ace?"

"I've seen you with your Dave," Ace said. "I do understand how miserable you've been here. I'm sure ol' Skipper will understand too, given time. How's the _Wildfire, _Kryters old top?" the hero called over his shoulder. "Up to specs?"

Kryten leaned his head from side to side, trying to see around the bags.

"Last systems check showed her to be in tip-top shape, Mr. Ace, sir," the mechanoid said helpfully.

"Knew I could count on you, old man," Ace said proudly.

Kryten simpered happily.

The foursome turned a corner and strode into the cavernous docking bay. Kryten scampered around the gleaming _Wildfire_ to stow Kochanski's bags in the hold while Ace climbed into the cockpit.

"Cat," Kochanski said. "My scarf, if you please?"

Cat clutched the red silk protectively.

"What scarf? This scarf?" He draped it around his neck. "Sorry, Officer BB. It's finders keepers, and I found it."

"Yes, in _my _closet," Kochanski snapped.

"I can't help _where_ I found it," Cat retorted. "Point is, I found it, and that makes it mine. Just like these boots are mine. In fact all this," he gestured to his glitter-sprayed ensemble, "is mine!"

Kochanski rolled her eyes.

"Fine, keep it. What do I care? It's more than worth a lousy scarf to get out of this rusted-out frat house and back to my own ship and my own friends, where I belong."

"So, that's it then," Lister's voice sounded from the doorway. "You're really leavin' us."

Kochanski's expression tightened.

"Lister..."

"Nah, no need to explain," he said. "You saw a chance to get back to your perfect Dave, an' you took it. I can't blame you for that."

"Well," Kochanski said. "I'm pleased to find you so understanding."

"You're surprised's more like it," Lister said, and smiled a very small smile. Kochanski wasn't quite sure what that smile meant, but she returned it as best she could.

"No hard feelings, then?"

"I wouldn't go that far," Lister quipped, and Kochanski turned away in disgust.

"Why do I even try," she said, and called up to the cockpit. "Everything all right, Ace?"

"Ship-shape and Bristol fashion," Ace called back. "Not a trace left of that killer virus. Nice work, Kryters!"

Kryten shuffled out from under the hold.

"I'm afraid I can't take all the credit, Sir," he said. "The _Wildfire_ computer is quite a determined AI."

"She is indeed," Ace said fondly, running his fingers over the controls. "Still, time's a tickin'. It's been a blast, fellas, but Kris and I should be getting on our way."

Kochanski glanced at Lister, who gave her an encouraging nod.

"Go on," he said, and winked.

"Right," she said, and climbed up into the narrow cockpit. Ace scooted over to make room for her, but it was still a cramped fit. Kochanski wrapped an arm around his shoulders and draped her legs across his lap, and that made it a little more comfortable.

"Take good care of her, you hear?" Lister called out.

"As if she were my own dear sister," Ace assured him. "Skipper, I—"

"Look," Lister said. "If it helps any, I'm sorry for what I said last night. I was angry an'...an' there was no call for it. 'S far as I'm concerned, you're the real Ace Rimmer."

Ace blinked rapidly.

"Now, get outta here," Lister said. "There's a multiverse out there that needs savin'."

"Good-bye, Dave," Ace said, and lowered the cockpit roof. "Smoke me a kipper, lads! I'll be back for breakfast!"

"Bye, Ace/Bye, Bud/Good-bye, Mr. Ace, sir!" the Dwarfers chorused, and dashed behind the safety field as the room depressurized and the docking bay doors slid open.

The _Wildfire_ rose, turned, and shot out into the blackness of space, a streak of red lightening against the distant stars.

"Right," Lister said, slapping his hands together. "Race you to the cockpit!"

"Mr. Lister?" Kryten queried.

"Hurry up, Kryten," Lister shouted, already jogging up the corridor. "We've got to get in position before Ace activates the Dimension Jump!"

"What are you up to, bud?" Cat said, keeping an easy pace beside the gasping Lister. "You seemed awfully cool about Officer Bud Babe flyin' off with Ace. If you're plannin' to blow them up—"

"No, no, it's nothin' like that," Lister rasped, pressing a hand to his chest as he clambered through the cluttered cockpit and collapsed into the pilot seat. "Smeg! Either _Starbug_'s gettin' longer or me legs are gettin' shorter."

"More like your gut's gettin' wider, bud," Cat sneered, slipping gracefully behind the navigation console. "All that beer, cigarettes, an' curry are catchin' up with you."

"Nah, it's definitely _Starbug_, man," Lister said, clearing his lungs with a few chesty hacks. "She hasn't been right since Rimmer blew up our future selves. Remember that? It was jus' before we went back in time an' talked Kennedy into shootin' himself."

"Not really," Cat said. "What did you drag us all up here for, anyway?"

Lister talked while he worked, bringing the _Wildfire_ up on the ship's main viewer and synching up their course and speed.

"It's the _Wildfire_, man," he said. "She's got this mad plan to help Rimmer."

"Help Rimmer?" Cat wrinkled his nose. "What for? He looked fine to me."

"Yeah, on the outside," Lister said. "On the inside he's still the same cringin', craven loser he always was. The _Wildfire_ says it's up to us to help him, before Rimmer's twisted-up rubber band of a brain snaps completely."

Kryten wrung his plastic fingers.

"Sir, would this plan entail linking _Starbug_'s main computer to the _Wildfire_'s AI unit, then following Ace and Miss Kochanski through the multi-dimensional vortex – not to Miss Kochanski's home dimension, but rather to Mr. Ace's own past, with the intention of forcing Mr. Ace to confront his abusive family and, thereby, recognize and defeat the psychological demons that have been stalking him his entire adult life?"

"How did you know?" Lister asked accusingly.

"Call it a random guess, sir."

"Wait," Cat said. "Are you tellin' me we've got to follow Ace through that giant swirly thing?"

The Dwarfers looked ahead just in time to see the Wildfire disappear into a wavering, inter-dimensional rip. Half a second later, _Starbug_ too was caught in the anomaly's blinding orange light. The small, green transport ship rocked and shuddered, rattling the terrified Dwarfers around like gems in a rock-polisher.

"Too late to turn back now," Lister juddered, his brains feeling like they were being pureed against his skull. "Hold on to your hats, everyone. We're goin' in!"

_To Be Continued...  
_

* * *

Sorry for the long wait, everyone. More will be coming soon! :)


	8. Chapter Seven

This update is quite short because this is all I could write out during breakfast. Hope it's enough to earn that kipper! LOL!

The blaring klaxon in the beginning was inspired by an actual fire drill that occurred early this morning. Such a fun way to start a Saturday!

Thanks so much for your reviews, everyone. You really know how to cheer up an overworked research student!

**Chapter Seven**

The _Wildfire_ slid through the tumultuous vortex with barely a shudder.

"Impressive handling," Kochanski said, and she would have said more but a sudden blaring klaxon drowned her out.

"That's the proximity alarm!" Ace shouted over the din, switching the noise off as his fingers raced over the controls. "Something's coming through after us. I can't quite— Wait, wait, this is wrong…"

"What's wrong?" Kochanski demanded. The former navigation officer stared at the blinking lights and dials on the control panel, but while the basic set-up was familiar, the multidimensional readouts were beyond her. "What's happening?"

"We're off course," Ace snapped. "Autopilot's engaged. What the smeg does she think she's doing?"

A soft crackle of static, and the _Wildfire_'s sultry voice spoke, "It's for your own good, Arnie."

"My good?" Ace demanded, anger cracking his calm, competent façade. "But, this is mutiny! Usurping control, altering our course! What about Kris?"

"You want to dispense with the mask, don't you?" the _Wildfire _responded. "To step out of Ace's long shadow?"

"Wait, what are you saying?" Kochanski said. "I thought he _was_ Ace."

"He is Arnold Rimmer," the computer said, the name causing the hero an involuntary flinch. "Lately Second Technician aboard the JMC Transport Vessel _Starbug. _And unless he accepts that he will never be more than a second-rate actor trapped in a part he can play, but never truly make his own. Your words, Arnie. Don't say I never listen."

Kochanski turned on Ace. "What is this?" she demanded. "Is she saying that you...you... _You're_ the Rimmer Lister missed? The anal retentive with the shoe trees and labeled underpants? But...but, then, who was it rescued my Dave's disk from that fire? Was he the man you replaced?"

"Wonderful," Rimmer said. "_I_ come up with a daring plan, _I_ risk my life and sanity with that blasted Polymorph, and Saint Ace _still_ gets the credit."

Kochanski blinked, surprised at the change in his voice and manner.

"I didn't mean-"

"Yes you did, so shut-up," Rimmer said. "Where are you taking us, Computer? Can you tell me at least that much?"

"See for yourself," the _Wildfire_ said as the sleek ship slid out of the vortex and into normal space.

_Starbug_ followed a moment later, out of control and rocking, shuddering and spinning so erratically the _Wildfire_ had to take quick evasive action to avoid being smashed into parts.

"What-are _they_ in on this too?" Rimmer exclaimed. "Is this all some scheme you lot have been hatching behind my back? Let's take the piss out of that idiot Rimmer? The moron who tried to be Ace?" He slammed his fist on the console. "I trusted you, Computer. You were the only thing in this cruel multiverse I ever did trust. I can't believe you would betray me like this!"

"It's not like that, Arnie," the _Wildfire_ said. "Your friends care about you. They want to help."

"Help with what? My complete and utter humiliation? Well, mission accomplished!"

"Use your eyes and look past those stupid flared nostrils of yours," the _Wildfire _snapped. "You have a mission to accomplish, Arnie, and your friends have come to support you. Not to mock or belittle your efforts. They want you to succeed."

"Succeed at what?" Kochanski asked. "Where are we?"

"Ask Arnie," the _Wildfire _said, and turned the ship away from the slowly stabilizing _Starbug_ to face-

"Io," Rimmer gasped, staring in awe at the crusty, pock-marked Galilean moon. Space craft of all shapes and sizes swarmed around the volcanic satellite in neatly demarcated spacelanes, and Jupiter's hulking sphere loomed just beyond, its stormy red glow reflected in the greenish domes that sprawled across the moon's surface.

The comm system crackled and Lister's gerbil face appeared on the screen, grinning from ear to ear.

"Hey, looks like we made it!" he crowed. "Welcome home, Ace!"

_To Be Continued..._


	9. Chapter Eight

**Long time no update. OK, _VERY_ long time, no update, and I'm sorry about that. But here's a fresh new chapter I hope you'll enjoy! Please let me know what you think! :)**

**Chapter Eight**

"I do not want to be here," Rimmer muttered. "I truly do not want to be here."

The Dwarfers had left their vehicles parked snugly in a sort of maintenance shed just inside the surprisingly crowded parking dome that stood adjacent to the much, much larger private dome that protected the Rimmer family estate from Io's harsh climate. From orbit, the two domes looked like two gigantic, slime green scum bubbles, the smaller one half-swallowed by the bigger one. But, to Lister's mind, which had grown up under the blue skies and open spaces of Earth, the domes looked even worse from the inside.

Despite the twitter of birdsong and the occasional squirrel or rabbit peeping out from the grass, there was something about this place that churned the Earthman's gut, something faux and unnatural. The air was unusually heavy and warm, and smelled like the inside of a greenhouse that had been shut up all summer. White floodlights dotted the landscape, but they seemed to be more for the plants' benefit than any causal stroller. Most of the light in the dome was the secondhand sunlight reflected off the massive face of Jupiter, whose looming orange storms seemed close enough to touch.

Lister shivered a little, then sneezed all over his jacket.

The Cat recoiled, but Kryten scurried to offer him a handkerchief.

"Thanks, man," Lister said, and cleared his sinuses with a _honk_ that should have resonated for miles. In the dome's enclosed atmosphere, it sounded dull and feeble. Lister blew his nose again, then wiped at the little wet sprinkles that dotted his leather sleeve.

Kochanski grimaced and shook her head, as if to say, "Hopeless!"

"So," Lister said, after handing the damp cloth back to Kryten, "how far to civilization?"

"What 'civilization'?" Rimmer scoffed, glowering at the rolling expanse of trimmed trees and manicured lawn as if it were a bleak tarmac stretched between the thick, barbed wire-topped walls of a prison. "There's only the main house, the greenhouses, and a few maintenance and hunting sheds scattered about between the trees. Father was always mad about hunting. Well, shooting really. Gave him an excuse to mess about with all those guns he kept collecting."

"Guns?" Kochanski looked around nervously. "Then, shouldn't you go on ahead and introduce us? I, for one, have no intention of being shot as a trespasser."

Rimmer's smile was as hollow as his eyes.

"Oh, my father wouldn't shoot you for trespassing," he said.

The Cat seemed to brighten.

"No?"

"No," Rimmer affirmed. "Just breathing's excuse enough for him."

Cat's expression crumpled.

"Your family's all nutters, Rimmer," Lister said. "The lot."

"Father and Mother, I'll grant you," Rimmer said flatly. "Perhaps even myself. But not good ol' John, Frank, and Howard. They're the success stories here. Perfect lives, perfect careers… Perfect hair…"

Rimmer raked a hand over his own dense curls and started marching in a direction slightly diagonal from where they'd been standing.

"If you're coming, mind to walk where I step," he called back without turning. "The house security computer doesn't take kindly to the uninvited."

He lifted his head, his beady eyes narrowed almost to slits as he scanned the familiar landscape. He knew every tree his brothers had lashed him to, every rose bush they'd dumped him in, every anthill they'd forced him to lick. It stung that the _Wildfire_ would inflict this upon him, and stung deeply. That she would allow the people who had rejected him, the people who had crippled his childhood and mangled his adult ambitions the satisfaction of seeing, first hand, the abject failure he'd become…

"A lovely contrast to the John-Frank-and-Howard set this motley crew'll make, yes indeedy-do," he muttered darkly as he stomped the lush, even grass under his flight boots. "Second Tech Bonehead Rimmer and the dregs of the Mining Corps sipping champagne and nibbling strawberries with the cream of the Space Corps elite. Wonderful."

He paused for a moment to suppress a shudder, only just managing to make it look like he was waiting for the others to catch up with his long strides.

"Let's get this bloody reunion over with."

* * *

Ever since that last injection, Cdr. Frank Rimmer's left arm had become a burning, tingling, aching irritation. He tried to attend to General Metzeler as she prattled on and on about The Project, but Frank's mind kept slipping away to a luxurious Jacuzzi tub where his hot, prickling arm could be soothed and massaged by streams of air bubbles. If he closed his eyes, he could almost feel the smooth porcelain beneath his feet, smell the sharp, chemical scent of Io's heavily treated water…

But this was his parents' anniversary party, and he had to bite his lip and bear the discomfort for the sake of The Family, The Corps, and The Project. His parents would expect no less.

"Daddy, Daddy, Daddy!"

Frank felt the tug of little fingers on his uniform and swallowed a frustrated sigh.

"I'm so sorry, General," he excused himself. He stepped a discrete distance from the table, then glared down at his offspring. Four bright eyes stared eagerly up at him from two flushed little faces. Frank's irritation grew.

"Can't you see I'm talking with important people," he snapped. "Where is your mother?

"Daddy, you have to come!" the little girl said, pushing her younger brother back so she could have more of her father's attention. "Security's reported intruders on the grounds! I saw them on the monitors!"

She reached for his hand, but Frank pulled away from her touch, his arm tingling and burning worse than ever. The girl's crestfallen expression didn't even register in his peripheral vision.

"Why bother me?" he demanded. "Why not annoy your grandfather, or irritate your uncles?"

"We tried," the boy piped up.

"_And_?" Frank snapped.

The little boy wilted, but managed to squeak, "They said we're your brats and should pester you."

Frank clenched his teeth against the surging pain in his arm and turned his blazing eyes on the boy.

"Serves me right for letting your sap of a mother talk me into having children in the first place," he growled through his agony. The searing heat was moving up his shoulder now, into his back and neck. Gesturing to his daughter, he said, "You, girl. Show me to the monitors already."

The hurt on the girl's face shifted to a superior sneer, which she aimed at her snubbed little brother.

"It's this way, Daddy," she said, and led the way into the house.

* * *

Rimmer led the Dwarfers up a curving hillside stairway lined with flowering laurels, azaleas, and oleanders. Off to the right, a painstakingly crafted waterfall splashed down rocks that had been cut and placed 'just so' to create a prismatic rainbow effect.

"This place might be beautiful, if it wasn't so artificial," Kochanski said. "As it is, it puts me in mind of a theme park, or that cheezy asteroid casino with the android barmaids: At'Vegas City."

"At'Vegas City. Yes, I know of it," Kryten said, sounding somewhat disapproving. "The place that actually promotes itself as the happy merger of two of the tackiest places on Earth."

"'Cept, it's not on Earth," the Cat said with a wicked grin. "I remember, ol' Gerbil-Cheeks and I once spent four whole days playing the AR Video Game. What happens At'Vegas stays At'Vegas, baby!"

"Wait until you see the house," Rimmer said dryly. "It should be visible in just a few…" He climbed the last of the stairs and peered over the broad, neatly terraced hilltop gardens. "Ah. And there it is."

Lister had been puffing and cursing Rimmer and all Rimmer's ancestors the whole climb up the stone stairway. Now, as his head rose over the rim of the hill, his jaw dropped and he sagged, gasping to catch his breath.

"Smeg, Rimmer," he wheezed. "It's a smeggin' castle!"

"More of a stately home," Rimmer corrected.

From the look Lister shared with the Cat, it was clear he thought Rimmer was bragging. But Kochanski, who'd grown up among the wealthy set, could tell he was more embarrassed than proud of the ostentatious structure.

At first glance, its thick, square walls and castellations put the observer in mind of the Tower of London, but the sweeping spires and rows of windows were more like Highclere Castle. It was an unfortunate happenstance that the building's rich, pink marble façade looked a horrible, murky brown in the greenish orange daylight under the dome.

"Well, whatever it is, there's clearly something going on there today," Kochanski observed, standing on her tiptoes to peer over the topiary hedges. "Look at all those tents on the terrace."

The others jostled to see what see what she was seeing. As they did, a row of gem-like ruby balloons rose from among the white pavilions to spell out "Many Happy Returns" – a feat achieved through the careful manipulation of the static electricity generated by the dome itself.

Rimmer's face paled, and he swayed on his feet.

"Oh, no," he said. "Oh, no no no no no."

Lister gripped his arm.

"What's with you, man? See someone you recognize?"

"She did this to me on purpose, I know she did," Rimmer sputtered, his ivory complexion filling with blotchy red.

"Who did what, Goalpost-Head?" the Cat demanded.

"The _Wildfire_ computer, of course," Rimmer snarled. "She brought me here, to this place, on this day, at this time because…because she knew…she knows—"

"Knows _what,_ Rimmer," Lister exclaimed. "Don't keep us in suspense, man."

Rimmer hung his head, his rigid posture on the verge of cracking.

"It's my parents' fortieth wedding anniversary. The day I swore…"

He choked, but swallowed hard and forced himself to go on, his eyes hard and bleak.

"I dreamed of this day so often, when I was young. This big anniversary party... It was supposed to be my perfect moment. The moment I would finally march up to my parents, look them straight in the eye and say, 'I did it. I passed the navigation exam. I'm an Officer.' And they would look at me and, for the first time, the first time in my hopeless, wretched life, they would see me. They would _see_ _me_. My father would look to my mother. My mother would nod her head. Just slightly. Just enough to indicate her approval. And, just like that, I would be welcome at the table. The Officers' Table. The _F__amily_ Table. Not fobbed off on the servants. That was how it was supposed to be. That was how it _should _have been. Except…"

"Except, you didn't pass," Lister said, the blunt words sounding much gentler than they read.

"Not that time," Rimmer said stiffly. "Nor the time after that. Nor the countless times after that. So, I stayed away. I threw myself into my career. And now…"

"And now, what?" Kochanski said. "What have you to be ashamed of, right here, at this moment?"

Kryten was ready with an answer.

"Well, there's his lifetime of failures, his inability to climb any higher up the ladder of command than head custodian of a redundant janitorial team aboard a rundown mining craft with faulty drive plates, his—"

"Enough, Kryten," Lister interrupted.

"But, that's not _you_ anymore, is it," Kochanski said. "Maybe it was years ago, before you left with the _Wildfire_, but you've changed since then. I've seen it. The man I met aboard my _Red Dwarf_ was not the man Kryten just described. He was brave, charming, humble – a genuine hero!"

Rimmer snorted.

"He was just a character," he said. "An act I put on. He wasn't _me_. Not really."

"Oh? And what about this other bloke, then," Kochanski pressed, starting to get angry. "This sniveling little failure I've heard so much about. Who's to say he's not an act too, hm? Who's to say he's not a safe little character you put on when you need an excuse to not to try – an excuse to back away from what scares you the most!"

"And what's that?" Rimmer demanded.

Kochanski narrowed her eyes, and her voice got low and dark.

"Why don't you tell me?"

Rimmer's nostrils widened and he seemed to tremble all over until, finally, he turned away, his furious glare directed fully at the floating balloons high above.

"You don't know me," he said. "None of you do. None of you ever did."

"I reckon that's truer of no one more than it is of yourself," Kochanski retorted unsympathetically. "You don't know yourself, Mr. Rimmer. You don't trust yourself, and you've no idea what you're actually capable of. But, the _Wildfire _has, and she brought us here for a reason."

"Don't mention that traitor," Rimmer snapped. "I—"

"Stop where you are! We have you covered!"

The Dwarfers jumped at the tinny sound of a male voice filtering through a speaker planted in a nearby bush. A moment later, a circle of thin metal poles shot up from the ground, enclosing the intruders within an powerful electronic fence.

* * *

Inside the Rimmer mansion's lavish security room, Frank's little daughter looked up from the 3D monitor with dark, predatory eyes.

"We've got them now, haven't we, Father?"

Frank nodded; a slow, suspicious movement.

"That we have, my girl," he said, patting her head with the hand that didn't feel like molten lava was coursing through its veins. "That we have."

_To Be Continued…_

_Reviews Welcome! :)_


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